The protective coatings industry has continued to gain traction with the evolution of thick film polyurea chemistry and the ability to apply them, typically with industrial spray machinery, to almost any type of substrate surface.
We are seeing thicker and thicker coating films/membranes being applied, even as thick as one inch (1″) thick. In the case of protecting a large floor area such as a ship deck, before application of the coating, masking must be applied to prevent coating an area that is not to be coated. Afterwards, the masking must be removed but before that can happen, there has to be a viable means by which to trim through the coating to delineate the edge of the coating and the edge of the masking tape, in order to allow for the clean removal of the masking tape.
A similar problem is addressed by the WireTrim™ product manufactured and sold by Langeman Manufacturing Limited, and described in Canadian Patent No. 2170573, issued on Nov. 9, 1999, and U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,025,045, 6,284,319, 6,875,469 and 7,014,900, each of which is hereby incorporated into this document by reference, except that the WireTrim™ product is not designed for trimming very thick coatings, such as one inch ship deck coatings. Wiretrim™ is not sufficient. A much stronger wire or cutting filament is required to cut through a thick coating or thick films such as films one inch thick.